"Take a look at the New Masters of the Universe," it read, and she was standing among them — the protesters who had coalesced as Occupy Chicago to oppose the financial interests they blame for the nation's economic crisis.

Stationed at Jackson Boulevard and LaSalle Streets in the city's financial epicenter, Occupy Chicago is one of more than a dozen groups that have sprung up nationwide in the three weeks since Occupy Wall Street began its protests in New York.

"Honk to indict a banker," one sign read.

Judging by the blaring horns, many motorists wanted to.

Between the Modest Mouse T-shirts and inventive hair, it looked somewhat like the Pitchfork Music Festival had set down in front of the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago. But approving horn honks came from all manner of conventional types.

Beefy truck drivers honked. CTA bus operators honked. When a double-decker sightseeing bus passed, the tourists on board pumped their fists in solidarity with the kids in pink hair and nose rings.

Occupy Chicago had been here since Sept. 23 but hadn't attracted the kind of large crowds seen in New York. In recent days, protesters said, 100 to 200 people arrived at the corner during the day, with far fewer taking shifts overnight.

"Occupation" means something different here than in New York, where Occupy Wall Street has been allowed to take over a private park. The Chicago protesters are not permitted to sleep on the sidewalk but said they are grateful police let them sleep in nearby cars.

They are not allowed to put permanent structures on public sidewalks, so they have put the occupation on wheels.

On a recent afternoon, takeout cartons of tuna salad and bags of pumpkin seeds rested atop shopping carts lined up in front of a planter outside the Federal Reserve. Nearby, a grizzled man sat on the sidewalk, hand-silkscreening fabric squares with the words "People Over Profit."

Xu Shi, 43, a risk management analyst who lives in Naperville, wandered by, looking at signs. He works at a bank, but he agreed with much of what the group said.

"Ordinary employees are getting hurt, including in banks," he said. "My colleagues and I, we're facing the same threat of losing our jobs. Our bank announced plans to reduce the workforce early next year."

Foster, managing editor of a trade magazine for the pet industry, was making her first visit. She cranked up her soft voice above the din of drummers banging on plastic buckets to explain why she had made her sign on her lunch hour and walked over.

"I am sick of the way Wall Street and financial interests have influenced our government," she said. "They are 1 percent of the country. Why is the influence of the 1 percent so much stronger than the other 99 percent?

"If you don't have a job in this country," Foster said, nodding at the financial office towers on LaSalle Street, "look up."

She knows some people are dismissing the Occupy protests. She doesn't think they should.

"People laughed at the tea party at first," she said. "I'm a 55-year-old woman. I'm not a radical by any stretch of the imagination. I'm one of the most quiet people you'd ever want to know."

She laughed. "Those days are over."

Up and down the curb, no one was quiet.

"Our generation is lost," said Ariel Volpert, 25, a graduate student at the Chicago School of Professional Psychology. "We were told, 'Go to school, go to school.' Now it's dawning on us: What are we going to do then?"

When she graduates, she will have $80,000 in debt and will have aged out of her parents' health insurance coverage. Even working part time and living on ramen noodles, she had to move back with her parents in Des Plaines in June. And with so many college graduates unemployed or working at menial jobs, she despairs over finding a job.

"I sometimes wake up in the middle of the night and wonder, How am I going to pay that (debt) off?" she said. "Was I stupid to go to college?

"I'm not a hippie; I'm not here saying, 'Anarchy.' I'm saying that a lot of people, that 99 percent of us in the middle class, are getting screwed."

Olga Turner, 62, owner of a day care center on the South Side, banged a tambourine she had fished out of a toy chest.

"Just to see the devastation that has come over the African-American community, it's horrifying," she said. "Black people have lost everything we have worked for since slavery."

A car stopped for a red light. The driver hit the horn and held it — through the entire light, as the protesters' cheers crescendoed. When the light turned green and he drove off, he was still holding down the horn.

What do the protesters want?

The question is posed regularly on the Occupy Chicago website, occupychi.org.

"I'm really confused by both the movements in Chicago and in NYC," someone wrote on a discussion board. "What are the end goals of these organizations? What's it going to take to make everyone go home?"